We’ve done threads before on foods that are gross by other standards. It’s just cultural training. What’s a delicacy in one culture could be taboo in another, or simply thought of as being disgusting.
There’s no rational reason for many food taboos, but some are functional. I’ve made the point before that the Hindu prohibition against eating beef ensures that they’ve got work animals around to help with the farming. If there wasn’t such a strong prohibition against eating them, then they could have really screwed themselves when there was a famine. Some people starving because they don’t eat the cattle is better than almost everyone starving because there aren’t any work animals left when conditions get better. You couldn’t support a population density as big as India’s with just hand labor, and tractors aren’t a viable replacement for most places even now.
I knew I was pretty much acclimated here when my stomach rumbled while walking through the fish section at a big supermarket in Tokyo. It was pretty smelly by US standards; not a nasty putrescent stench, just fishy. Most Westerners would have wrinkled their noses, but it made me hungry.
I’m surprised that sashimi and sushi caught on in the US, but I’m not surprised that horse didn’t. I’d bet that horse is prohibited from human consumption in most jurisdictions in the US, and a lot of people think of them as work animals, companions, cute, friendly, etc. rather than as food. Most of the rest of the world doesn’t have a problem with chowing down on Flicka, though; horse is served in much of Europe and Asia.
Japanese eat just about any kind of slimy nasty gunk you can think of. A lot of that is sea food. I can cope with lots of it, but some of the slime makes me gag, even if the taste and smell isn’t objectionable. Among meats, horse, game meats, and occasionally whale are available, and are often served raw. I’ve personally had raw pheasant, wild boar, deer, horse, and whale, along with a bunch of raw seafood of all descriptions.
Stuff about American food that kind of grosses out the Japanese is that everything is all mixed together into an unappetizing mess by their standards. Pouring gunk over rice, for example, is both gross and makes it hard to eat with chopsticks. Beef is considered to be a greasy meat, so many prefer pork, especially so when it’s ground meat. Most Japanese would say that there aren’t enough vegetables or enough variety in a typical meal, the portions are way too big, and there’s too much fat and grease in everything.
Just about any two cultures you compare, you’re going to find meal practices that are mutually distasteful to downright revolting. You can usually overcome most of your food prejudices, if you want to, but there will still be some things that are hard to impossible to cope with for someone who wasn’t born to that culture, even for adventurous eaters.
